by Alisha Rai
Cowed, the chatty head lowered. It cast her a sideways glance. “Sorry.”
She would not feel bad for a hellhound. She would not feel bad for a hellhound. She would not…
“I thought you guarded the entrance to the Underworld,” she said after an uncomfortable silence.
The middle head grunted. “Cerberus does.”
Oh, that cleared things up. Not. “Isn’t that you?”
The tawny head once again looked at her, its tongue hanging out of a doggy grin as if it was pleased as punch to be making conversation again. “Oh, there are lots of our kind, but we’re the only ones the master allows in his palace. He loves us sooooo much. We’re special.”
Middle head, who could easily have been a proper butler, gave a delicate snort. “You’re the special one.”
“That’s what master says. I’m the head that makes this Cerberus special.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get us drowned upon creation.”
Before tawny head could be chastened again, Persephone intervened. “And you’re all called Cerberus?”
Tawny nodded. “That’s our collective name. Though master calls me—only my head, because I’m special…” it shot a triumphant look at the others, “…Bob.”
Okay. “I see. None of the rest of you have names?”
Middle head gave a put-upon sigh. “Our sire calls me Middle, and…” he indicated the eerily quiet white head staring straight ahead as they plodded, “…it is called Right.”
Not a very imaginative guy, this Hades.
“You can call me Bob too, if you like, my lady.”
“I’m not your lady.”
“You are a deity,” it said simply.
Barely. She didn’t speak, but Bob had clearly decided that she was fine with its prattling, because it chattered nonstop. Its favorite topic of conversation, she discovered quickly, was Hades.
“Do you like to scratch dogs’ heads? My master scratches my head just right…”
“My master doesn’t even get mad when I gnaw on the souls in Tartarus…”
“My master lets us sleep near him when I have a nightmare…”
“My master…my master…my master…”
She found it kind of endearing, actually, and wondered if this Cerberus really had been in danger of being destroyed when it became evident that Bob was not exactly the grim face of terror. If so, it was a point in Hades’s favor that he hadn’t done so—indeed, he even seemed to indulge the nonsensical creature.
Don’t you go indulging him just because he cares for a goofy dog.
They came to a halt in front of a set of double doors that flew open on its own. “This will be your room for the time being…” Middle began, and then stopped.
She waited for it to finish, but its gaze was focused on something behind her. Indeed, all six eyes were looking past her. “Cerberus?”
Bob craned its neck. “How’d you—? Ow.” It frowned at Middle, who had knocked their heads together. “What?”
Middle ignored it. “My lady. I hope your room pleases you.” It dipped its head and stood to the side to allow her entrance.
She entered and drew in a sharp breath. Scarlet-red curtains hung from a decadently large bed centered in the middle of the room. The rest of the furnishings were a dark brown—so dark it appeared black—while the floor was covered in a carpet that made her want to kick off her slippers and sink into it. It looked like a madam’s room in a whorehouse.
She loved it. It was utterly different from her room at home, which while pretty, looked girlish in comparison with its pastel floral décor. This was very clearly a woman’s room.
If only it wasn’t so devoid of natural light. There was a large alcove for a window, and a plush red velvet seat, but no actual glass. The light came from gas lamps scattered around the room.
“Thank you, Cerberus. This will do nicely.”
“Is there anything else you require?”
Sunshine. Flowers. Home. Those thick arms— She cut off that thought. “I guess food or drink is out, huh?” Not that she needed food or water to survive, but she enjoyed it as a novelty and as a comfort, particularly if it was something she’d grown herself.
“Alas, those rumors are true. If you consume any food or drink in the Underworld, you remain in the Underworld.”
Was that a hint of warning she heard? She turned to the hellhound. “How long will I be here?”
“I will see if there is any news and come to you post-haste if there is.”
“Thank you.”
Its body took a step away, but Right spoke. She wasn’t surprised to hear that its voice was rusty with disuse. “Have a care, lady. Bob may be foolish—”
“I am not.”
“And Middle may be polite, but should you cross Lord Hades, neither will stop me from ripping off your limbs and feasting on them.” It flattened its lips and pulled them back so she could see its sharp canines and gums. Saliva dripped down to darken the white fur around its mouth.
She shivered as it stalked out, the door closing on Bob’s chiding voice. “That wasn’t very nice…”
Persephone chafed her arms with her hands as she wandered around the room, finally sinking with a sigh onto the window seat. She hated this feeling. Would there ever come a time when she wouldn’t feel like a particularly limp yo-yo, jerked from one world to the next?
“Hey, my little tulip.”
She turned with a jerk at the loud, booming voice. “Zeus?” She hadn’t seen Zeus in years, and then only for a brief time before she’d left Olympus, but he looked relaxed and hearty, his light brown hair long and flowing. He had grown facial hair since she had seen him last, a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard. His eyes were a matching light brown and danced with merriment, but Persephone knew they hid a ruthless and cunning mind. He wasn’t completely solid; she could see the door through him. “Is that really you?”
“Of course.”
Her eyes narrowed. She may not have spent a lot of time around gods, but she knew their trickery. This could very well be some plan of Hades. “Prove it.”
“Oh, my suspicious rose. Okay. First time I met you, you were crying.”
Of course she was crying—she’d been running from horny Hermes. Little winged bastard could flit around fast. That didn’t prove Zeus’s identity, as any number of people could have seen her or heard the story from him. Gods were a gossipy lot. “You need to do better than that.”
He glowered. “Fine. Last time you saw me, I was crying.”
Wincing in remembered sympathy, she smiled. “I’m sorry that nymph kicked you where she did.”
“Trust me, so am I. Ugh. So this is how Hades decorates, huh? It’s so garish.” Zeus studied his surroundings with a small curl to his lip.
“It’s not so bad.” As she said the words, she wondered why she was defending that boor. To cover her slip, she rushed to speak. “I assume you’ve never been here then?”
“Nope. Hades forbids all of us from entering.”
He sounded remarkably cheerful for someone who was breaking a massive rule. “So why are you here? For that matter, why am I here?”
“Well, I’m here—sort of here—to put some of your worries to rest. Don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to have to use my considerable soothing powers to calm you quickly.”
His angelic countenance didn’t fool her. “And why am I here?”
“Oh, that. I put you here.”
The third time Cerberus cleared its throat, Hades poked his head out of his large walk-in closet. “What?” he snapped.
Only his demon dog would dare intrude upon him when he was in this mood. Middle spoke. “Sire, I merely wanted to assure you that Lady Persephone is settled nicely in the red room.”
“Great, good.” The red room, which happened to be next to his room. Not that that mattered—he had a better chance of fucking Medusa than he did Sephie.
Once again…not that that mattered.
“She is qui
te an interesting young lady.”
He grunted, which shut up Middle, the very proper and conscientious head, but had no affect on Bob, who set the hound’s tail to wagging in its eagerness. “Do you know what she’s the goddess of, master?”
“No. And I don’t care, as long as I can figure out who has the giant balls to fuck with me.” He found what he was looking for shoved into a corner on the bottom shelf of his closet, and he grabbed it.
There was only one person he could think of who had the aforementioned testicles, the absolute gall, to tamper with his life. He pulled the silk wrapping off the large glass sphere and thunked the priceless artifact on his desk. “Zeus!” he yelled. “You stupid git. I want to talk to you.”
The black surface shimmered and then began to swirl, galaxies drifting across it, until a face he hadn’t seen in centuries—which wasn’t long enough—appeared. “Is that any way to talk to your brother?”
“It is when I’ve been cursed with you.”
“Tsk, tsk. That world you live in has completely stripped you of all pleasantries. Here, let me help. Hello, Hades. How have you been? It’s been, what, a few hundred years?”
“Cut that out. I want to know one thing and one thing only…did you send this Persephone to me? Are you preventing me from sending her out of here?”
“Yes and yes.”
Hades opened his mouth and closed it, completely unprepared for that fast and calm mea culpa. “I… What?”
“Hear me out, Hades. She’s in danger. I had no choice.”
Hades dropped into his chair. “Make it fast.”
“I discovered a bit of a contest amongst some of the younger gods.”
“With Persephone as what, the prize?”
“Well, yes. You know how they are.” Zeus laughed. “We were like that once, all full of boasting and competition.”
Zeus and Poseidon had been. Hades had never been young.
“Since when do you care about some other deity, Zeus?”
“You wound me. Though you’re right, normally I’d be all for chasing a maiden, but Persephone has a power that is much needed by the humans, and I couldn’t risk that she be damaged. You see, the competition wasn’t just to woo her…but to take her.”
Take her? Hades blood started to simmer. “Take her how?”
Zeus made a face. And if anything-goes Zeus was making a face, it must not have been pretty. “You know.”
“Rape her.”
He nodded reluctantly. “Yes. And then hold her captive for the others.”
Hades cracked his knuckles. “I want names.” All that soft, supple flesh, that delightful spark of spirit that had defied him so boldly, crushed beneath the heels of some renegade gods? Not a chance.
“Relax, brother. I’m sorting it all out. Give me a little time. In the interim, shelter Persephone down there, would you?”
Keep her with him? That wasn’t a hardship. He had had far less attractive and tempting morsels in his private abode.
She won’t see it that way.
No, she would be scared and terrified of the thought of being trapped with him, even if it saved her from a fate worse than death. Hell, to her, he probably was the fate worse than death.
“Hey, Hades, you there?” Zeus was snapping his fingers.
He jerked to attention. “Fine. I’ll keep her.”
“Keep? Now, be careful. Persephone may be a good-looking piece but don’t go getting any ideas about trying to steal her away from us. She’s pretty vital to the Earth and the mortals.” Zeus’s hearty laugh couldn’t hide the flash of warning in his eyes.
The unspoken threat raised Hades’s hackles. He bared his teeth. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I have a few terms for you, though. Remove the block that kept me from sending her back and tell me how you managed to get her past my shield.” Every security system had vulnerabilities, but he made his as close to impenetrable as possible. Besides, no one in any world would get away with shorting his powers.
Zeus frowned. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” The picture faded in and out rapidly. “You’re…cutting…out…”
“Son of a bitch, Zeus, don’t you dare…”
“I’ll give you a ring when it’s all clear on this end. Toodles.”
“Zeus—” Too late. The ball went black, and Hades knew the other god wouldn’t answer again until he was good and ready.
Only the clearing of Middle’s throat stopped him from hurling the sphere against the wall. He tried to control his temper around his servants, not that he often succeeded.
“Sire, what is the plan then?”
“She stays.” Damn it, his body certainly liked that idea.
“Shall I tell my lady?”
He hesitated. He really ought to let Cerberus go and inform her, but that perverse, irritating part of him that couldn’t stop himself from wanting the unattainable female roared to life. He stood. “No. I’ll take care of it.”
“Very good, sire. Um. Might I be so bold as to warn you to watch out for the flowers?”
Chapter Three
Hades understood Cerberus’s cryptic words when he neared the red room. A long vine sprouting the most unusual flowers snaked along the granite floor. He knelt and touched the petal of a bloom, finding it velvety smooth and warm, as if it had sprouted from the ground in some sun-drenched garden and not from the stone floor of his palace.
Intrigued, he followed the vegetation all the way to where it disappeared, sure enough, under the door of the red room. Was this his new visitor’s version of a trail of breadcrumbs?
He grasped the doorknob and was about to push it open when he had second thoughts. Knock first. That was what civilized people did, right? Before he could call himself a fool, he gave two rapid knocks to the heavy wood. It was awarded, to his surprise, by a meek, “Come in.”
He shoved the door open and raised a brow. Had he thought the vine odd? It was nothing compared to the tropically scented paradise that had bloomed in Persephone’s room. Plants of all kinds had sprouted, seemingly from the walls and floors, wrapping around the four posts of the bed, entwining with the gas chandelier. Most were flower bearing, bringing bursts of greens and pinks and blues and yellows. The unusual rainbow profusion was a reminder of the stark colors of his world.
In the center of this new garden sat Persephone, curled up with her back to him on the window seat, chin in her hand. Had there been a window there, she would have been gazing out of it. As it was, she was staring at a black wall, her profile in sharp relief. “Did you bring me news, Cerberus?”
Ah. She assumed he was his manservant. That explained her relaxed posture. For the first time he wished his body, glorious as it was, was really a three-headed dog, if that put her at ease. “It is I. And yes, I have news.”
His voice made her back stiffen—with loathing he presumed—and she straightened and half turned to look at him. He held up his hand to stop her from scrambling to stand. “Please sit.”
She subsided back in her seat and stared at him, eyes big and haunting, so fresh and lovely it made his back teeth ache with want. Unable to speak and look at her at the same time, he focused on a point over her left shoulder. “I spoke with Zeus. He said…”
“That he was the one who sent me here. I know.” Her tone was flat.
His never-ending suspicion niggled. “How do you know?”
“He came to me, was standing where you are now.”
Hades checked the urge to move away from the spot. “He was here bodily?”
“No. He was translucent.”
That was something, he supposed, but if Zeus had managed to send Persephone and a shade of himself here, it wouldn’t be any great hardship to send his corporeal self here eventually. That wouldn’t be tolerated. Hades liked to limit his involvement in cosmic showdowns. Note to self: prioritize revamping security system.
But first, he had to handle his guest. “And you know why he sent you?”
“Yes.”
“Yo
u’re taking the news pretty well.” There were no tears or disbelief or anger or accusations of fabrication.
She curled her legs beneath her, her skirt making a waterfall off the seat. “Trust me, this is nothing new.”
He took advantage of her sudden lack of hostility to probe further. “The gods often try to rape you?”
“It’s not me they want. You see, I’m easy.”
“I beg to differ.” If she was easy, neither of them would be clothed right now, and he’d probably be a lot happier.
Did he imagine the twitch of her lips? “No. I mean, I may be a goddess, but I was raised by mortals, and Demeter has only had time to develop the powers of mine that are most necessary to the world and to her. The other gods know this.” She turned back to the faux window and propped her chin in her hand. A new tendril broke off from the vine nearest her head and slowly unfurled until it was long enough to drape over her shoulders, as if it were giving her a hug.
“I see.” No wonder she couldn’t materialize clothes or escape the bonds he’d put on her. Despite her well of power, she had no idea how to manipulate it. Most gods with powers that deep were taught early on exactly what they could do with it. “What, ah…” He sidestepped a plant that was slithering toward his ankle. “What exactly are you the goddess of?”
“Vegetation.”
Demeter, you smart cookie. His cold and self-serving sister wasn’t the type to adopt orphans unless something was in it for her. Demeter was the goddess of the harvest, so Persephone’s untapped power would correlate and balance hers.
“I know. You don’t have to say it.” Persephone faced him again and shook her head. “Aphrodite has beauty and Artemis has war and Athena has wisdom, and what do I have?” She flung her arms wide, as if to encompass the room. “A green thumb. Useless, I tell you.”
“Well. I wouldn’t say that.” Oh dear gods, were her eyes wet with tears? No, no. Give him a screaming female over a crying one any day of the week. He looked around the room at the sudden greenhouse. “Vegetation is very…important.”
“I’m sorry about all this growth. I do it subconsciously when I’m upset or sad or mad… I can’t help it.” Persephone wiped at her eyes. “No wonder I’m an easy target. No one would make a contest out of me if I was stronger. Zeus wouldn’t have even been able to fling me down here without my consent.”